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Getting Ready to Launch!

Hey Folks! Sorry for the news lapse yesterday. After taking care of some more administrative-type tasks, I decided to quit early and watch Rogue One. Not bad. Not bad at all! And K2SO had me laughing within minutes of the opening :)

Getting ready to launch the mobile version here! So far, no major bugs have been reported, and it's still looking like this is the one. So I spent the whole day working on marketing materials. That means things like:

Writing the announcement

Creating art assets for the launch

Reviewing store listing details on Google and Apple

Uploading the new trailer

Editing the properties of the new trailer

Researching AdWords and Facebook Boosts/Ads/WhateverTheyCallThemNow

Assuming the app review process goes according to schedule, I'm hoping I can press the big red button sometime this Saturday. NEO Scavenger's popularity/sales on other stores seems to spike on the weekends, so this seems like a natural timing. Plus, with Rochelle and Marlowe away visiting family, I have the place to myself in case I set the internet on fire by accident :)

Comments

I have been keeping up with your blog for several months now and finally created an account just to say;
YAAAARGH! The anticipation has been killing me! Neo Scavenger is easily the best (solo) survival game I've played (and I play alot of them) and I simply can not wait to just have it in my pocket!
May have to invest in a portable charger :/

Anyway, your work is very much appreciated and I'm psyched to see some more deets on (Solar Scavenger?)!

Just out of curiousity, are the sales still going in a steady pace? I'm not asking for exact figures or even any numbers really, just been wondering on how you feel it's doing overall, being already not a new and more importantly a niche game by today's standards.

I feel like it's probably extremely important to get as much advertisement as it's realistically possible for an indie developer (youtubers/twitchers, write-ups on websites, etc.) out there during launch, so basically doing as much PR as possible at that exact stage. Sure, you'd get spikes later on on sales and stuff like that, but nothing like that early surge later, ever. So it (again, probably) makes sense to really try and make it count.

Thanks @El Rando! I'm hoping the mobile version is worth your wait! And "Solar Scavenger" has some nice alliteration/continuity to it, but not the name I'm going with. Once mobile is out the door, I'll probably make the official announcement!

@Rovlad, I think your assessment is correct. To the degree that a luck-based success story like me can claim any expertise, anyway :)

In terms of revenue, NEO Scavenger is well into the so-called "long tail" territory. Day-to-day sales are below cost of living, with big sale/discount events pulling almost as much weight over the year. If I had no other expenses but my wages, it might just break even by the end of the year.

That said, I do have other expenses this year. A good chunk has gone to Tiago (mobile dev), Josh (space prototype soundtrack), Joshua (mobile trailer), web developers, lawyers, accountants, and a handful of smaller contracts. Which overall has placed BBG in the red for 2017. (Basically, chewing into the financial cushion NEO Scavenger created early on.)

The good news is that the large majority of those expenses are completed. With the new website mostly paid-for, mobile all-but-finished, and most legal/accounting tasks done for the year, I should be able to carry on with a much lower overhead for a while.

So at this point, any amount of success in mobile helps lengthen the runway I have in getting the space prototype to market.

And yeah, I'll be firing on all cylinders the day mobile launches. Announcements on all my channels, starting/reviving threads in relevant places, emailing reviewers, buying highly-targeted ads on AdWords and Facebook, newsletter mail-out.

It won't be a marketing blitz like the big boys, but it'll certainly dwarf the original NS launch fanfare :)

Thanks, this is basically exactly the information I've been looking for.
I kind of miss your gamedevgonerogue days when you'd make long posts explaining exactly this kind of stuff in detail. :)
Not that I'm not glad that you can now prioritize actual gamedev over blogging about it.